Oven Bake

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Entertaining with the Sopranos. To read more about the cookbook, click here.

Gael Greene shared these recipes with Epicurious from her new book, Insatiable. To learn more about Greene, read our Q&A. This meat loaf started life as a meatball recipe in the Times.

There's no need to set up a deep fryer to make great potato chips—the oven is just fine.

(Bacalhau com Nata Feito à Moda da Enca Mello) Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Jean Anderson's book The Food of Portugal. Anderson also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Anderson and Portuguese cuisine, click here. Enca Mello (called "Pequenina" by friends because she's so pretty and petite) is a Lisboeta (Lisbonite) based at the Portuguese National Tourist Office in New York. She's an outstanding Portuguese cook and this recipe of hers is to my mind one of the best of all ways to prepare bacalhau.

Recipe from the kitchen of Felicia Gray, age 12 Many crab dip recipes call for imitation crabmeat, but there's no place for "krab" here. Only real lump crabmeat makes it taste best. Serve it while it's hot with crackers, bite-size pieces of bread, or veggie sticks. It can also be presented in a bread bowl and served with a tray of fresh broccoli, carrots, zucchini, or crackers.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Katie Brown Entertains. To read more about Katie Brown and to get her tips on throwing a headache-free cocktail party, click here

(Kuku-ye sabzi) Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Najmieh Batmanglij's book A Taste of Persia. Batmanglij also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Batmanglij and Persian cuisine, click here. A kuku is a baked omelet somewhat similar to an Italian frittata or an Arab eggah; it is thick and rather fluffy, and stuffed with herbs, vegetables, or meat. It may be eaten hot or cold — it keeps well in the refrigerator for two or three days — as an appetizer, side dish, or light main dish with yogurt or salad and bread. Kukus are traditionally made on the stovetop, but my oven version is much simpler. A fresh herb kuku such as this one is a traditional New Year's dish in Iran. The green herbs symbolize rebirth, and the eggs, fertility and happiness for the year to come.

I first met Katy Sparks in the flesh at New York City's French Culinary Institute. We were both there to teach on a mentorship program, and since I was already wild about the food at her restaurant, Quilty's, I made a beeline for her and insisted we become friends and spend lots of time eating together. For fun, Katy and I have given several cooking classes working as a duet; she made these dates at our first class together. They are just the kind of thing I find irresistible — sweet, crunchy, juicy, spicy — you name it, they've got it. Once you have the ingredients, they're very easy to put together.

This tried and true recipe, a Hong Kong tradition of chicken roasted in the Chinese manner, has a long history in my family. It is the dish I have made when, because of circumstances, our family has not eaten together: my older son off to swimming practice, my daughter to ballet, and my younger son to lacrosse. Or I am off to a cooking class and I must leave dinner in the oven.

Although the marinade sounds similar to several of those given for tofu, it's just different enough that, when used on the completely different tempeh, you have a wholly distinct, and wholly delicious, dish. This is a base preparation. Use the baked tempeh as part of a component plate, sauced or unsauced, cut up as the filling for spring rolls with tempeh, added to a vegetable stir-fry, or as the centerpiece of a hearty sandwich. Traditional Indonesian flavorings for such a marinade are salt water (in lieu of tamari or shoyu soy sauce), fresh pressed garlic, and dried coriander.

Onions, cheese, and yogurt pies abound in the north of Greece, especially in shepherds' communities where dairy products are daily staples. This recipe is culled from that tradition, but instead of preparing a whole sheet pan with homemade phyllo, I have reworked it to make it accessible and more in tune with the meze style of eating.

Heat the pizza stone and prepare the eggplant and other pizza toppings in this recipe while the pizza dough is rising.

Irish stouts produce a thick head when poured, so chill the can or bottle well before measuring to reduce the foam.

If you have to buy more than the amount of ground lamb needed for this recipe, use the leftover meat to make a juicy lamb burger a day or two later.